[dr. smith] we were thinking at the time we would have one patient show up at a time, and we would see the patient, and we would recognize that there was a risk that they might have covid, and we can whisk them into an isolation room. but probably the first week of march, we started to realize that we just had, we had too many patients. [dr. ng gong] every hour or so, we're having an emergency called for respiratory distress. there was just so much fear, and there was so much uncertainty at the very beginning, in march. and we had no idea what was coming. within a few days, that's when the wave started. one after another after another after another. [man] they're overrun with patients. emss last night broke a record, we handled 65 hundred calls. [mola] it's so dire, emts have been told to stop transporting some patients in cardiac arrest that can't be revived in the field. everybody was being pulled in to do what they needed to do. we have the housekeeping figuring out methodologies